I just read this NYT column by Bryan Stryker, on how Democrats can win back the working class. I have no idea how its proposals poll, but as an economic matter, they will do little to help the working class. The big problem with Stryker’s argument is that it assumes that the working class will somehow benefit […]
Dean Baker
Posted inOp-Ed
Dean Baker: Republicans Reject Biden Proposal to Spend an Amount Equal to a Quarter of the Military Budget on Infrastructure
Washington Post budget reporters have a game where they try to write things in a way that none of their readers have any clue what they are talking about. According to rumors, they give a prize each year to the reporter who does the best job in providing zero information to readers. Today’s piece on the proposals […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Dean Baker: A Two-Year Shortage of Semi-Conductors Is Not a Supply Chain Problem
I have been following Washington debates on economic policy for several decades, so I’m used to silly claims. While it may not be in the top ten just yet, the idea that a shortage of semi-conductors now hitting the auto industry and other sectors is a supply-chain problem is certainly moving up. A Washington Post piece on […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Dean Baker: A Vaccine Summit: Taking the Pandemic Seriously
April 12, 2021 – You might think that, after a year in which have seen millions of deaths and tens of millions of infections, and trillions of dollars in economic losses, our leaders would take the pandemic seriously. But apparently, that is too much to ask. To my view, taking the pandemic seriously means doing […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Dean Baker: Is the Distribution of Vaccines the Biggest Trump Screw Up Yet?
December 28, 2020 – The Washington Post tells us that 7.7 million first doses of vaccines have been shipped to date (two million shots have been given), with a target of 16 million by the end of the year. This is warp speed? By comparison, we manage to get over 170 million flu shots in people’s arms […]
Posted inUS
CEPR: Plunge in Consumption of Services Leads to Record 32.9 Percent Drop in GDP
July 30, 2020 – The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank at a record 32.9 percent annual rate in the second quarter. While almost all the major categories of GDP fell sharply, a 43.5 percent drop in consumption of services was the largest factor, accounting for 22.9 percentage points of the drop in the quarter. Nonresidential […]
Posted inUS
Job Growth Slows Sharply in May
June 2, 2017 – The unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent in May, a new low for the recovery and the lowest level since 2001. However, this decline in employment was the result of people leaving the labor market; as the number reported as employed in the household survey actually fell, with the overall employment-to-population […]
Posted inLife
Dean Baker Publishes Latest Book on How the Economy is Rigged
Washington, D.C. October 19, 2016 – Today, Economist Dean Baker is publishing his new book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. This book shows that upward redistribution was not the result of globalization and the natural workings of the market. Rather, it was the result of conscious […]